PC Games Of 2015: Those Wot Could Conceivably Be Good

Driving & Racing Games

There’s more to driving a car than simply coming first – especially if you’re as bad at racing games as some of RPS. If you’re looking to win races and advance through a career as a motorsport champion, pootle around in a procedurally generated Europe, or dodge flaming wrecks and throbbing beats, then 2015 has the wheels for you.

Carmageddon: Reincarnation

Genre
Driving/RacingRelease date
Out now!What is it?
The crowdfunded revival of the original bad boy racer, Carmageddon now seems tame by modern standards – and so far, its handling model and tracks make the game seem old-fashioned in lots of other ways, too. It has been improving over the course of its early access release – some initial performance issues seem ironed out, at least – but it remains to be seen how this one ends up.

Drift Stage

Genre
Driving/RacingRelease date
TBAWhat is it?
Gorgeously recreated early 90s retro graphics and an extremely talented composer set this very smooth neon arcade racer apart. A Kickstarter is on the way with a playable demo build – look out for it.

Mad Max

Genre
Driving/RacingRelease date
TBAWhat is it?
A massive open world to drive across in vehicles seemingly constructed solely to explode in entertaining light shows, Mad Max adds vehicular combat to the explore, quest and fight formula. A little more serious than Avalanche’s previous games, the Just Cause series.

Wreckfest

Genre
Driving/RacingRelease date
TBAWhat is it?
Previously known as Next Car Game, Wreckfest is a racing game with a focus on destruction. Cars that crumple, tire walls that scatter their contents across the track, road surfaces that become chewed up or cluttered with each passing lap. There’s a straight destruction derby mode too, but it’s best when you’re attempting to run a regular race among all the debris.

Project CARS

Genre
Driving/RacingRelease date
Out now!What is it?
Perhaps the PC’s prettiest game, and certainly it’s prettiest racing game. Project CARS is a crowdfunded, crowd-developed racing sim with cars and tracks from multiple types of racing, with a career mode that aims to let you advance a single driver through the ranks. Worth looking at if only for the absurdly shiny cars and rain-slick road effects.

Road Redemption

Genre
Driving/Racing, Early AccessRelease date
Q3What is it?
Remember Road Rash? Of course you do. You played it on a Sega Mega Drive against a friend, riding motorbikes and whipping each other with chains. Now you can call that old friend up again. You haven’t spoken in decades, but he’ll know what it’s about. You’ll laugh at all the things that have changed for each of you – kids, marriage, Sam even got divorced. Where do the years go? As the two of you talk, you’ll both forget why you ever called, and eventually Sam will be called away. You’ll say your goodbyes and promise to call more often in future. When you get back to your PC and sit back down in front of Road Redemption, you’ll find yourself overcome with a stillness, time stretching out behind and in front of you. This one has a track where it rains cars.

Thumper

Genre
Driving/RacingRelease date
TBA 2016What is it?
A hyper-violent Audiosurf, dodging, jumping and grinding along the edges of a track in time to (sadly pre-provided) music. The eventual goal is to destroy a giant, terrifying head that represents a malicious creator, addicted to his own game. Already featured on Duncan Harris’ Dead End Thrills screenshot gallery for its sheer beauty and currently making its way through IGF, you’ll be hearing a lot more about this one as we venture through 2015.

Table Top Racing: World Tour

Genre
Driving/RacingRelease date
Q4What is it?
Basically just Micro Machines, but 3D and so playable from a behind-the-car perspective. The original TTR is already out and available on mobile, but World Tour is shinier and coming to PC.

MX vs ATV Supercross Encore Edition

Genre
Driving/Racing, Early AccessRelease date
Q3What is it?
The base game has long been available on console, but Encore Edition aims to refine the physics and add prettier graphics while still offering the same deformable dirt tracks to drive and jump around. Still fundamentally a dirt bike Supercross game though.

Red:Out

Genre
Driving/Racing, ArcadeRelease date
Q3What is it?
Part of the sadly all too uncommon impossi-physics arcade racing genre that has a distinctly early 00s feel. Turns out that anti-gravity’s most useful application will be ludicrously high speed racing.

Distance

Genre
Driving/Racing, Early AccessRelease date
TBA 2015What is it?
A ‘survival racer’, which thankfully doesn’t mean it’s about cars dying of cold and hunger in the woods. Distance instead takes the ideas of an early prototype named Nitronic Rush, and polishes them up the nth degree – a futuristic, neon world reminiscent of Wipeout or Tron, a track covered in destructive obstacles, and a car that can take flight at any moment.

Audiosurf 2

Genre
Driving/Racing, MusicRelease date
Out now!What is it?
Audiosurf was a great way to experience music, as it turned your favourite tracks into racecourses that could be spend around with a hovering ship. It was less good as a game, challenging you to either hit certain coloured blocks in your path or avoid others. Audiosurf 2 adds new mechanics and new moves to your ship, though so far seems no more successful as a game and even slightly less successful as a way of enhancing whatever music you’re listening to.

F1 2015

Genre
Driving/Racing, SimulationRelease date
Q2What is it?
Little is known about next year’s installment of the licensed racing franchise, other than that it’s not being ported to the older generation of consoles. This means prettier vrooms, if nothing else, and hopefully a more stable game thanks to new-gens friendlier architecture. There’s also promise of live updates throughout the season.

Wincars Racer

Genre
Racing, Arcade, Free To PlayRelease date
TBAWhat is it?
Classic arcade/kart-style racing with customisable cars, characters and skills. Designed to be played in the online multiplayer, standard races are joined by a variety of challenges. Exactly how this will be free to play isn’t currently known, but a mixture of cosmetics and character sales would be the norm.

Need for Speed

Genre
RacingRelease date
TBA 2015What is it?
A “full reboot” of the famous racing franchise. A night-time open world will be the setting and there will definitely be a lot of vroom vroom but probably not too much boom boom or walk ‘n’ talk after the disastrous NFS The Run.

Sébastien Loeb Rally Evo

Genre
Racing, RallyRelease date
Q4What is it?
Named for one of the best rally drivers in the world (apparently) and fully licensed vehicles, Rally Evo is looking to nab Dirt’s thunder after a few low-impact years. 300 kilometres of tracks, 50 cars and a mixture of rally and other off-road events are the details so far.

MotoGP 15

Genre
Racing, MotorbikesRelease date
June 19th 2015What is it?
This year’s edition of the official motorbike racing sim. It features updates to the AI and physics engine along with the introduction of personal teams which allow you to customise your racing team from the ground up. A host of official tracks can be raced around in a number of online and offline modes.

DiRT Rally

Genre
Racing, Rally, Early AccessRelease date
Q4What is it?
An interesting entry in the long running Rally series, announced and released into Early Access on the same day. It’s gone down a storm, already an impressively beautiful and well-handling game that’s receiving on-going support. They plan to implement more tracks and competitive online modes soon.

Formula Fusion

Genre
RacingRelease date
March 2016What is it?
A recently successfully Kickstarted spiritual successor to Wipeout et al. They’re looking to implement VR, which fits pretty well with the cockpits of zero-g craft. They’re also looking to use modern tech to improve the physics simulation, speed and general prettiness of the near-future dystopian racing.

FutureGrind

Genre
Driving, Tricks, PlatformerRelease date
Q1 2016What is it?
A high score and time chasing trick game based around a two-wheeled motorcycle dealie grinding along rails. All concept, it’s fast flowing and has a lovely style, bright colours against blue skies. A near-future OlliOlli.

Absolute Drift

Genre
Driving, DriftingRelease date
Q3What is it?
A free-roaming driving adventure, where you must drift around, through, into and under various things to complete missions, unlock cars and progress. It’s got a lovely minimalist art style to match how it plays and is a development spin-off from a Global Game Jam 2014 game.

Monster Jam Battlegrounds

Genre
DrivingRelease date
June 10th 2015What is it?
Official game of the monster truck touring show, it allows players to race around or freestyle in several Monster Jam stadia. Stunt mode adds skilled based challenges, while additional tracks take place outside stadiums, as seen above.

Radial-G: Racing Revolved

Genre
Racing, VRRelease date
TBA 2015What is it?
VR-focused racing along a giant space tube. Fast and frantic but not reaching kart levels of weapons and powerups, just collections of speedup pads and an all out race to the finish.